Mirage
by absurdvampmuse
Summary: Bellarke. /Set after Praimfaya. What if the pod Clarke sees does contain Bellamy?/He finally exhaled the breath he had been holding. "You still smell like you, Princess," were the words that came tumbling from his lips. She felt his fingers tug at her locks as if they were looking for every place they hadn't been yet./


**Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the _100_ or any of the characters. I am merely borrowing them. All I own is my imagination and the laptop I wrote this on.**

 **A/N:** And just when I thought my fascination with Bellarke had become dormant, it stirred right back up when I realized that the new season is starting soon and that a reunion is on the horizon for these two. This idea got stuck into my head and resulted in this story. As always, I hope you'll enjoy reading this.

* * *

 _ **Mirage**_

 _Would you call that love?_

Clarke ran like she had never run before, her feet carrying her in the direction of where she had calculated the pod would come down so fast that she felt like she was flying. The trees and sky were blurs of greens and blues, barely registering as she moved like her life depended on it, chasing an oath that had been left unspoken and was based on mere belief. _And hope._ Her heartbeat was beating incessantly, and her fingers were clenched into fists as she clung to that hope, knowing how fleeting it could be, like sand passing through an hourglass.

Hope that he had not only gotten away in time but also that he had persevered like she had. And had survived. Survived so he could eventually find his way back to her. It had been 6 years of talking out loud to the memory of him, to static.

She halted at the edge of the landing site, realizing how careless she had really been and how presumptuous it was of her to not consider all of the other possibilities. Yet before she could backtrack or find a place to hide herself away, she caught the various hues of chocolates, blacks, and golds as _he_ emerged from the pod. Suddenly and silently, so unlike who she had come to know.

Her breath lodged in her throat even though she forced herself to approach him slowly, calmly. Unaware of how the sight of her blue eyes caused for emotions to stir within him that had been dormant. Both of them read the disbelief, relief, and amazement in their respective gazes and the need to touch one another became palpable.

Clarke needed to touch his face to ensure that he was real and not a mirage, a figment of her wishful thinking, a daydream she had gotten lost in. And Bellamy hadn't seen anyone but the core group he had fled with for years, he hadn't seen her. He had somehow gotten close to forgetting how disarming she was. How real and part of _this_ world. Gritty yet inviting with her sharp edges and soft looks, her starkness and pastel hues.

Her beauty and fierceness.

Then her hands were on him, hesitant at first as if they had become strangers and had to find their way back, although her touch took mere seconds to feel familiar, intimate even. Arms were looped around his neck while fingers slid across her skin and wrapped around her waist. He inhaled while she closed her eyes, both holding on for dear life as they realized what they had been so close to losing.

He finally exhaled the breath he had been holding. "You still smell like you, Princess," were the words that came tumbling from his lips while hers grazed his neck as she turned her head to look up at him. She felt his fingers tug at her locks as if they were looking for every place they hadn't been yet. "Your hair's short."

Clarke bit her lip for a second before reaching out to brush one of the longer locks out of his eyes, needing an unobstructed view of him and the coffee and cocoa shades that tinted his eyes. The longer strands suited him. It softened the dark edges he had acquired of his own. "And yours is so long."

"Six years."

"Six years," she mimicked his words.

Bellamy's hold tightened on her, pulling her just a fraction closer to him. "You survived."

She nodded, providing him with an explanation before he had to ask for it. "I was… saved. There were others who were hiding out. An underground bunker of sorts. One of them saw me, found me, and brought me with him. We were lucky," she added, her eyes flicking her eyes up to the sky for a quick second. "As for the earth, it restored itself. A rebirth… I have more exact data at my lab."

"Of course you do."

Her brow crinkled up and she took a step backward, so she could look at him fully. "What about the others?"

Bellamy reluctantly let her slip from his reach, his fingers tightening on the strap of his pack instead. "They're all still up there." Now it was his eyes that skimmed the sky above them. "As soon as Monty declared that there was a probability that I would survive the journey, I volunteered. Raven supplied the rest." He nodded at the pod behind them. He continued looking at it as he formulated his next words, seeming for them to come across as an afterthought even though the weight they bore was consequential. "I heard your messages… Raven couldn't get the frequency quite right, so I couldn't—"

"Clarke! Clarke!"

Both blond and brunette strands stirred as their heads turned in the direction of the high voice, watching as a young girl ran over to them, a gun clutched between her hands. "Are you okay?" she inquired as soon as she came to a halt.

Clarke nodded, holding out her hand so Madi could give the gun to her. "Yes. It was one of my friends. Did you come alone?"

The girl shook her head, eyes gleaming mischievously as she answered," I brought reinforcements. Jay."

"Good girl," Clarke said while pulling the girl closer to her in an affectionate manner, expecting the tall man with the russet curls and jade eyes as he appeared from amongst the trees and came walking towards them.

"Everything alright?" the man asked as he came to stand by Clarke's side, taking on a stance that Bellamy recognized as being a protective one.

"Yeah, false alarm."

The man shrugged. "Better safe than sorry, right?" He reached out to tug at Madi's ponytail before finally deigning Bellamy with a glance of his own, acknowledging him. "You're Bellamy, I presume."

Bellamy raised an eyebrow in slight surprise, his eyes briefly scanning Clarke's. He was expecting embarrassment in the most basic or slightest forms from Clarke, considering that she wasn't the kind to wear her emotions out on her sleeve, out in the open for everybody to scrutinize. But instead, she raised her chin just slightly and met the green-eyed man's gaze head-on. "I told you," were the words that slipped from her mouth, not sharply but deliberately.

"I guess you did." His response was clipped and his hand firm when he held it out for Bellamy to shake. "I'm Jay. How long are you planning on staying?"

Clarke rolled her eyes and handed Jay the gun she had taken from Madi earlier. "He just got here," she said pointedly.

Jay took the gun and slipped it into the back of his jeans, eyes remaining locked with Clarke's for a few seconds too long to be comfortable.

"I don't know yet," Bellamy broke in, adding a shrug for good measure. "Indefinitely. I'm sick of the darkness. Space."

Clarke smiled while Jay frowned. "I'm going to have to take your word for it."

"Let's head back," Clarke said.

"Can I go up ahead?" Madi asked.

Jay nodded, keeping a close eye on the girl as she began her trek out of the forest. He gestured for Clarke and Bellamy to go ahead.

But Bellamy paused, unzipping his pack and pulling out a notebook of sorts that he held out for Clarke to take. "Raven made me promise to give you this. All of her notes and information she managed to acquire. Hopefully, you'll be able to figure out the frequency from this end and then we can contact them. Find a way."

Clarke made to accept the notebook, but Jay reached for it first. He began flipping through it, although Clarke's attention was on Bellamy. "We'll find a way," she told him.

Jay closed the notebook with a thud. "Ready?"

* * *

Once they were back at the lab, Bellamy was assigned a room immediately. Madi was designated to show him the way, even though he could have most likely found his way on his own. Still, he couldn't help but smile at the girl's enthusiasm and follow her down one of the corridors, despite seeing Jay's order for what it was. The quickest way possible for Bellamy to be out of earshot from whatever exchange was going to take place between him and Clarke.

It took some restraint to keep walking and letting her out of sight when he had just barely gotten a handful of minutes with her _. It wasn't enough._ Not to make up for all of the time missed. He thought he saw the same impatience in her features as she crossed her arms and stayed back with the other man. Her eyes passed over his, blue against brown, as an implicit question was answered.

So Bellamy played the grateful guest in his own house and remained in his room while Clarke listened to Jay's concern and barrage of questions, accepting that it all was coming from a good place. They had learned to depend on one another in these 6 years, out of necessity and because _he_ hadn't been here. So she was patient during the exchange and flipped through the notebook with Jay, even though her mind was on _him._

Finally, she couldn't bide her time anymore and said she was going to check on Bellamy. Her tread and knock on the door were light, not waiting for him to grant her access before opening the door. She was dressed in the same outerwear while he had changed into a pair of black sweats and a black Henley that was tight enough to showcase his muscular biceps and taut stomach, eliciting a flutter of warmth in her own. He was sitting at the end of the bed, knees wide and hair still wet from the shower he had recently taken. His eyes seemed ablaze as they hooked onto her presence in the doorway. "Everything alright?"

Clarke let out the breath she had been holding, one hand on her stomach. "Just checking up on you," she answered with a quick nod.

"Are you and… Jay…"

He watched as the fingers of the hand on her stomach curled into a loose fist.

"…because the last time I checked you were into females."

Clarke scoffed. "And I've been into men." She shrugged. "I don't like labels. I like energy," she tried her best to explain. "And, Jay and I, we have in the past."

"And where does the girl fit into this?"

"Her parents were caught in the radiation. We took her in. Jay and I aren't anything but allies."

Bellamy's hands gripped his thighs. "Does he know that?"

"I've been clear. From the beginning," was her succinct reply. "What about you and Raven?" she asked, feeling like she had a right and reason to now that Bellamy had shown his hand.

"In the past."

"Like in the last 6 years?"

"Would it matter? You just told me that you have had sex with…"

Clarke held up her hand, eyes bright blue as she conceded, "Point made."

She watched as Bellamy finally rose from his position on the bed, head tilted just a fraction sideways as he looked at her from beneath unruly locks and hooded eyes. "And just to clarify, I haven't."

"Would you like an award for that? Because the old Bellamy would—"

"Yeah, well, I was focused on not falling out of the sky and finding a way back here as quickly as was humanly possible, Clarke." He touched his fingers to his chest before flinging them in her direction for emphasis, unable to mask his annoyance at the low blow she had been about to take at him.

She caught his gaze with her own, hoping that somehow, he could tell that she hadn't meant it. She was just being clumsy, getting used to being around him again. "I've missed you," she spoke her mind gingerly as she stepped over the threshold and into the room. And he zoomed in on every single movement, still standing by the bed. "You should be able to tell from all of the messages I've left you, but I wanted to tell you in person as well."

He turned his back to her and she came to a halt. "What exactly did you miss?"

She pressed her lips together as she considered her answer and how frank she was going to be, despite already having made the decision the second she had put her hands on him again. "Your strength," she confessed to him in such an effortless way because she had practiced these words, said them before in her head. "Your belief in me. The way you smell," she finished after a beat as she took a step closer.

And he could have sworn that the both of them stopped breathing for a moment or two.

Bellamy couldn't help the smile that pulled at his mouth.

"Are you going to say something?"

"I don't know where to start," were his words as he turned back around to look at her.

He saw the disappointment and frustration cross over her features and sink into her shoulders, though before she could take back anything, he moved. He reached for his pack, carefully taking out a stack of what looked to be diaries. "I couldn't fit them all in, so I brought a selection." He turned around fully now and held them out to her, like an offering. "I wrote down my replies to your messages, holding on to the belief, hope that one day I could give them to you and show you that I heard them." He used his tongue to wet his bottom lip. "That I heard you."

One second Clarke was a few feet across from him and the next she was moving, propelling herself towards him. Bellamy dropped the notebooks, without thinking about it, and caught her, gripping her beneath her upper thighs as she wrapped her legs around his waist and slung her arms around his neck. She pressed herself against him and he knew just where to hold onto her as if it had been destined to be.

They weren't holding back. Not anymore.

"I want to read them all," she whispered against his skin. "And as soon as we've figured out a way to get in touch with the rest, I want you to tell Raven to bring all of the other ones." She closed her eyes and took a few silent beats to savor the feel of her in his arms and his hands on her. "Having you back here, Bellamy, it's like I can breathe again."

He let out a chuckle, the words that followed slightly muffled as his lips were pressed lightly against her collarbone. "I was stuck under water, waiting for the wave to finally break… so I could breathe again."

Clarke pressed her lips to his neck, then to his cheek and finally to his brow. It was a show of affection that hadn't had a place yet in their relationship. But the moment called for it. It was the right time to.

They stayed like that for a while, just getting accustomed to being face to face again, skin to skin. It was a step that both had pondered on but never actually taken, but with all of this time spent apart and lost, it now seemed impossible to deny and almost natural, essential even to their survival.

Like breathing.

Bellamy released a breath into the nook between her throat and shoulder and finally said what had been on his mind ever since he had seen her again, "I've missed you, Princess."

* * *

 **Please review?** As always, your feedback would be greatly appreciated. It's been a little while since I've written anything, let alone something Bellarke related. If you know of any stories that I have to read or might have missed, please leave those behind in a review as well. Thank you! :)


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